Gorgeous Microscopy Wins a Koch Institute Image Award

The 2017 Koch Institute Image Awards from MIT have been announced; this video describes the work of one of the winning images, called "Making Waves" by the researchers that created it. Learn more about this gorgeous bit of microscopy from the video.

This a group of three images that show thin slices of human skin that has been treated in a variety of ways. In their work, the investigators are testing ways to deliver a "genetic payload" to the skin, to alter genes involved in aging. After treating the skin, it has also been stained so that various structures within are highlighted, and the investigators can see more clearly where their treatment has taken effect.

These researchers want to learn more about modifying age-related genes; they are trying to restore youth to old skin stem cells. That could reverse aging, something we're all interested in, and it could also be therapeutic for age-related disease. They were able to modify skin stem cells successfully, showing that using this technique as gene therapy for the skin may be possible, sooner than we think.

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